As the French National Assembly prepares to vote on final approval of marriage equality, anti-gay violence has severely escalated. Multiple guerrilla rallies by opponents of the law have taken place over the past few days, resulting in vandalized cars, assaulted journalists, and even death threats to lawmakers. A 24-year-old gay man was brutally beaten Saturday night after leaving a club with his boyfriend in the latest example of how the opposition is directly targeting gay people.Police have already made over 100 arrests over the past week.

Claude Bartolone, the Socialist president of France’s Assemblée Nationale (lower house of parliament) on Monday received a threatening letter containing gunpowder and demanding he defer a parliamentary vote, expected to definitively legalize gay marriage on Tuesday.

The one-page letter, signed by “an intermediary of law enforcement,” warns Bartolone that “our methods are more radical and more swift than protests”, according to French magazine L’Express.

“Allowing marriage for all would be the same as destroying all marriage,” the letter says, before making the chilling threat: “If you were to carry on regardless, your political family will have to suffer physically.“

Given both chambers of Parliament have already approved the legislation and this week’s final vote is merely a technicality to resolve some amendments, marriage equality is coming to France. But thanks to groups like NOM stirring up conservatives, equality could come accompanied by uncontrolled anti-gay violence.

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